I keep looking at the last panel and thinking, “Who else wants a hug?”
oh lordy, I’ve been waiting to see this page since I saw it in the sketch comic. You sure know how to tell a story. I love how Luca goes from looking normal to completely psycho in like no time at all.

Also, I’m inclined to believe that he isn’t so much as insane as he is possessed. The transition of his expressions between this and the previous page I believe are beyond his capacity, considering how poorly he usually hides his anger. Not to mention his face in the last panel looks very Dagre-ish… namely the blank, headlight-like eyes.

I think he was saying that by her running to her death, which was quick and… well it was quick, she prevented herself from being subjected to torture that he is planning to subject the rest of her people to, the torture his people was subjected to. Funny thing though, now that this war has been initiated, it may just have been wise after all.

augh jeez. I can’t say I didn’t see it coming, but I was hopeful that it wouldn’t!

Well, he didn’t say anything about not killing them, I guess? XD

(Also! I asked these questions before but maybe they got missed, you had a lot to look through, so that’s okay! I’ll just keep asking until you answer or kick my butt for being annoying, haha, either one works. Sorry! COPY/PASTE GO!:

So um, I had a question about the preordering of books. Do you know more exactly how long they’re going to be available? I really want to get a signed/sketched copy, but I’m unemployed at the moment so I want to know whether I should splurge a little or hold out and see if I can find a summer job first. XD

(also is there a way to request who gets sketched or are you just going to kind of randomly be picking characters? ‘cos I love Pinter, heheh. <3)

For preorders, they’ll probably be up until July sometime! Which is when we’re expecting the first shipment to come in.

For sketches, I actually have no idea how thats going to work XD My publisher is going to send me a box of stuff to sketch and sign, and I am not sure if they will be ready to mail at that point… If I do end up not knowing which character I am drawing for whom and you don’t get a Pinter, the alternative is to find me at some con and force me to draw Pinters all over things, which I will happily do :B

I hope he says “flame on” somewhere on the next page. New page looks amazing as usual. I really hope this series is successful for you and you do well with the comic release. I’ve already told all of my friends about this series :)

At first I thought Tessa was still screaming (and therefore alive) in the second to last panel. Then I realized it must be the remaining woman. It makes sense that she can’t help screaming her head off in fear and horror after what she just saw, but I also think the panel would be less confusing (and way more ominous) if there was a silent pause first… all that screaming from Tessa, and then creepy, creepy silence.

Off the puns, it seems Luca has graduated from the William Bryant, Francis May, George Pullman all-stars, passing J. Edgar Hoover along the way, and is now scheduled for a Joseph Stalin Celebrity Makeover. Queue the massacres.

Damn. DAMN! Has been a long time since a comic did that for me, if ever…shocking.
Apart from that, hope that Tesa has somehow survived this one, as a horribly scarred (the weave, the weave ^^!) reminder to the queen. To test whether she really wants the peace to last despite this provocation…
Damn.

(Keep in mind that I have NOT read the sketch version, and that everything here is pure speculation and observation)

Dagre, brother to Angora’s grandfather Mocheril, is hellbent on destroying humanity. His motives are unknown, but for whatever reason he seems to be unable to do it on his own, or at the very least prefers to stay behind the scenes as his plans come to fruition.

Hence why he’s chosen Luca here to be his puppet. Luca is already paranoid and borderline insane from all his fighting and trauma from his younger years, with his wife being the only thing keeping him from completely losing it. Dagre knows that Luca is powerful, and will not hesitate to start a war with the right provocation.

SO, Dagre kills Phe, knowing that Luca will immediately lash out and blame the ambassadors, regardless of the fact whether they actually did it or not. Without Phe to guide him and keep him in check, Luca will start a war that’s very likely to bring about the end of humanity, or at least be the first domino in a chain of events that will lead to that result.

Angora was told to go to the center and find a “woman who cries, but sheds no tears”, who I’m assuming will be Soli, the third and final major character who has yet to be introduced. Somehow, these two (along with Pinter who is assisting Angora) are supposed to stop Dagre (and, in effect, Luca) from destroying mankind.

One other thing I’ve noticed is that so far two of the major characters seem to have some sort of pseudo control over the elements. Angora over the Earth, and Luca over Fire (I’m assuming those are heat waves coming from his hands, and that he roasted that ambassador’s head). This leads me to believe that Soli will be somehow in control of either Water or Air, though I’m placing my money on the latter.

How this will all come together, I have no idea. But judging form the already masterful story so far, its going to be epic.

… Excuse the double-post. I also noticed how Tesa’s hands are burned as well: maybe Luca’s hands aren’t the only thing radiating fire thus heat. Either that or she tried to grab his hands in a rush of panic-y ingeniousness.

It seems to be implied that Mocheril gave Angora her abilities (as evidenced by the fact that her hair didn’t always have plants growing in it), and it looks like Luca’s sudden display of power here is a result of Dagre’s influence. If Soli has elemental powers at well, I wonder what enormous spectral animal she identifies with.

On a positive note, this page will haunt me forever, and his expression in the last panel is ridiculously well done. I don’t think I’ve quite seen a face of mixed emotion that well executed, especially considering how calm he was in the first panel. It’s one of those things that make this comic stick strong in my head, in a league of it’s own.

As always I feel.. conflicted about this page. Sure, I saw it coming many miles away concerning Dagre and his/its influence but.. I still hate seeing characters I like die.

I’m not talking about the ambassador. It’s not that I didn’t like her, I was a little indifferent since she was so.. marginally competent, and easy enough to freak out (as most sane humans would be in such a situation)

No. I liked Phe. I REALLY liked her. I like those stabilizing factors that keep these shadowed characters from tipping over into madness. Which is why they usually die.. and then the characters I like, namely Luca, eat themselves internally until nothing is left. You end up with a villain. A useful enough antagonist because as Dagre knows very well, humans are very easy to manipulate in their grief and pain.

Still. I’m the sort of person who roots for the powers of good.. in /Ravenloft/. So, I keep coming back but.. yeah. I can see where this is going. Hopefullu. I am wrong, but practically spellbound one way or another. I guess it is a wall of text way to say your storytelling is masterful, even if I always take HP damage from unavoidable tragedy by empathizing with characters like Phe and Luca.

That worried eye in the second panel is super. And I especially like how you decided to draw the third one, great shot indeed. To see what’s happening from other people’s reaction is better than looking at the fact itself :P

For some reason, the detail that his nose is wrinkled and his mouth curled back is so striking. It shows that the dead body is stinking, and that he’s recoiling from the scent, but not enough to stop being a crazy and terrifying madman for even an instant.

This will bring war there is no stopping that now killing one of the queens cousins when you have no proof what so ever, to back up your actions. These two could have been innocent from the start which makes his actions even worse I feel that Luca has just taking the first step, the horrible one that turns man in to a dictator.

As a side note I feel sorry for the now dead Ambassador her fears were well founded, I just don’t think even she saw this coming because I sure as hell didn’t….

He’ll refrain from jumping to any conclusions… but he’ll also hard-boil one of their heads without provocation. I don’t think he cares who killed who anymore. He just wants to _hurt somebody_. That, I think, makes him very, very, very dangerous…

Glad I read the comments below!! Dummie me couldn’t figure out what was up with Luca’s hands and clothes in the last panel after thinking that he’d only gouged her eyes out?! lol!! This is waaaay more awesome!!

Hm… I wonder why he went to the trouble of fibbing to them before killing one of them. I mean, I understand lulling them into a false sense of security, but he had the upper hand, so I don’t understand his reasoning for doing so. Still, awesome page… Can’t help but feel sorry for the ditsy ambassador though.

woah D:
I couldn’t, under any circumstances, expect such a turn of events. Wow °___°
I think he tried hard to stay calm and reasonably, but getting touched by someone he didn’t want to be near him (only Phe is allowed to come near him :D) just turned off or on some switch … brain off, insanity on. whatever.
This cold (lol so much heat, but cold) lunatic way of handling things ist really really scary :<

is the "that was wise" sarcastic? maybe I didn't get some important point there :/

the third and the last panel are gorgeous! shivers down my spine :9 goosebumps, I love this comic!

btw… is it also possible to get one of those prints send to Austria? (not Australia)

I really do feel like I am missing something. The first chapter felt kind of introductiony… but this second one is just bizzare. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but it is going so slowly, I wish I understood more of how this related to some random naked woman in the forest. Kudos though, for making me this interested.

I think it was known that he had powers- when he sees the embassadors for the first time and says ‘What are you hear for” He has his hand out to silence the introduction guy and the guard is like, staring at his hand like ‘Oh noes’ lol. Maybe thats how he rules, with the fear of his power.

I be confused. Is that the reason why he always wore gloves? So he wouldn’t burn everything he touched? I thought it was because his hands were somewhat disfigured so he wore gloves……does this count as the disfigurement?

He does wear the gloves because his fingers were once broken during torture (as far as I remember). The gloves are no protection against burning – there are serveral scenes (notably the bed scene) where he doesn’t wear them and nothing happens.
The burning power seems to be something that activates when he’s in extreme distress (similar to Angora’s power). He also might have some control over it, but I can’t really tell yet.
The gloves in this scene and before were just a really neat indicator for power activation. :-)

So I recently got into this comic because I saw a friend’s Ceiling Dagre wallpaper and was like “WTF IS THAT MELTING TIGER THING, IT’S TERRIFYING and yet somehow adorable?” and now i am hardcore addicted. awesome.

I just kind of assumed that what happened was Luca did the thumbs vs. eyes in the sockets dealie, but now it’s looking like he has some kind of burning palm technique. I had thought the smoke was some kinda artistic choice, like “check it out he just punched a lady’s eyes into her brains *smoooooke*”.

I have a suggestion for the stuffed Dagre but don’t have a LJ account so I thought I’d post it here. If you really want to give him his long neck, you could try having rice or beans in his bottom. I have a stuffed Tramp dog that sits up, even though he is tall, because there are beans in his caboose. Even not being the authentic design, he is still creepily cute. :)
And to be the 1,025 person to say it – I love this comic and you are awesome!

Look at the last panel, though. The two speech bubbles are rendered with very slight differences, and the one on the left conveniently only has one-syllable words. It could be that Dagre speaks, and then Luca finishes the sentence.

I think that he was going to defy Dagre,decretly after promising otherwise, but when Dagre saw the betrayal, he took him over. Luca probably doesn’t have superpowers, unless that is what happened to his hands in the war, and he cannot control it well.

But Dagre’s speech bubbles are really unstable-looking, symbolizing how ghastly his voice is. If he possessed Luca, wouldn’t he be talking the same way? Besides, from what we’ve seen so far, it’s very easy to tell that Luca’s vengeful heart is wide-open to manipulation. I don’t think Dagre would NEED to possess him.

Jeez, now you can really tell he’s gone mad (the messy hair is a very good sign of a mad-man). She better get out of there quick or he might change his mind and fry her, too.

It’s interesting how now his gloves are almost completely gone, as well as part of his sleeves. Did he use more energy this time? …I wonder if he’s ever tried to make popcorn with his powers before…? If they even have popcorn there.

You know I’ve been following this for awhile now but never really felt compelled to comment (bad reader, I know), but after this page my jaw literally dropped. this was so powerfully scary, amazing, crazy good!!! I was loving Luca, the poor confused oaf, but now I’m scared to death of him.

I bow to your awesomeness. ^^ I so wish I had money to buy the comic. :'(

Oh man, that Dagre plushie is as cute as it gets. You have to keep the glowing eyes idea!! I love it too much XD Man, that’d be creepy to have those giant round disks staring at me every night…

Anyway, it took me hours to get myself together enough to say something. I totally saw this coming, but… not like this. You still created such an insanely great impact. Your comic is FEARLESS! Chapter one had a naked lady running around with men trying to rape her, and this chapter has fairly graphic depictions of horrible ways to die. One of my favorite lessons from Stephen King’s /On Writing/ novel—tell the truth in what happens in your story, the things your characters do and say no matter how vulgar it is. It seems you take that to heart as well, because even though this is all fantasy and would never happen in real life, what you’re telling is believable. Angora’s actions are real enough for us to have faith in her while Dagre’s motives and Luca’s actions are terrifying enough to leave us with nightmares. I can’t wait for Soli’s story!

And uh… I don’t think there are enough words to express how amazing The Meek is. I love it so much! It’s given me so much inspiration! I hope I can have as much success in story writing when I start my comic.

If he’s radiating enough head from his hands to melt someone’s flesh in a few seconds, he’s probably radiating enough to flash fry someone’s brain. That’s just assuming he attacked using heat, it could easily have been a strong electrical arc, or some kind of magic that leaves what appears to be burn wounds as a secondary effect. I’m sure it’ll turn out to be something much more awesome/horrific than simple heat or fire.

I personally feel that Luca’s powers may be a manifestation of destruction, seeing as how he is tied Dagre (who need I remind you, wants to destroy everything). This would be a direct counterpart to Angora who is tied to grandfather-salamander, with the powers of growth.

Death by disintegration through nuclear fission!

Anyway for some reason I always liked the other woman anyway, maybe Tesa was created slightly annoying to lessen the impact of killing her off.

Well, the signed and sketched books be available for another week? I hope so, really bad. I’ll get your book for sure. I also can’t wait for the Dagre plushy. Luca looks like he could use a hug too, but I’ll just have to give my hugs to the Dagre plush instead.

…On an unrelated note, after browsing the wiki, I must ask–at this current point, what season is it? Also, if it’s not snooping around too much, will the comic span a short amount of time–a few weeks, in-world–or several months/years?

That’s one of the edits that I’m putting into the comic, each of the chapters starts out on a date. Right now is in June, I think (you can check Phe’s page on the wiki since I updated it with her specific death date).

Whaaa?! That was crazy! It looks like Luca has some crazy powers. I wonder if Dagre is like Adnora’s spirit guardian/father creature and they are both granted powers through their respective connections.

I think she probably grabbed his hands to try to pull them off (or just did it on reflex, either way). Since his hands were made of burning at the time, they burned her hands. You’ll notice they also burned the cuffs of his sleeves.

Woah, Luca’s scary now. Possessed, much? I figured she’d force him to break by being so emotional. Never expected it to happen this abruptly… or for Luca to have such strange powers. His hand no longer looks burnt either… but on the contrary, his hands are burning everything. I love how his face at the end parallels Dagre’s expression.

Been reading since maybe a few pages into the color version, and now I finally get all the “Luca is hot!” comments that have been going on all along. haha (and …eep!) this also brings a whole new, way sinister and disturbing meaning to the banner art for the chapter. o.O

Luca, in the last panel, is creepy enough to give Dagre a run for his money. The crazy eyes are worse on Luca because we know him, we’ve seen his emotional ups and downs over the past chapter, we’ve developed certain expectations of him as a character — and he just completely shattered them.

I actually didn’t notice the disintegrating gloves at first, but when I saw the burnt edges of his sleeves in this last page, I went back to see if they were like that earlier, and then I noticed “Oh yeah, and he had gloves a moment ago…”

I’ve been reading for a while, and never really felt I had a valid enough comment to add except the general “homfuguh, you are teh sex at everything!” Kinda noise I usually reserve for special occasions. I just have to say, I love this comic. I adore Luca, and I’d want to give him a hug if we hadn’t all just seen his reaction to such things. :3

I will have nightmares about this. In the mean time “OWNED”. And seriously best quote ever XD! *flails* I can’t wait for the next update!!! OH and super belated congrats on getting picked up by 4DE! You totally deserve it! *hugs*

It’s kind of sad some think Tesa deserved that just for being flaky. It rather overshadows just how monstrous an act it was.

Cheap joking aside, come on. This is so very much the complete opposite of everything Phe would have wanted. Grief isn’t a license to kill, I don’t think HOW he did it has nearly the impact as the fact he actually did it at all.

I feel so sorry for his children. They’re losing BOTH their parents in one swoop. :/

Really? I found it awfully chilling. (No I can’t think of a heat related pun for that feeling.) The fear on her face before he came in, her relief, then that insane expression on his face. I don’t find it funny at all.

You know, thinking about it I’ve realized that everything Luca’s said could be literally true. He said, for instance, that he doesn’t intend to jump to conclusions about the guilt of the diplomats until after an investigation was done. Taking him at his word, it means he killed Tesa without knowing or caring if she was guilty.

Which fits, really.

And is the typical prelude to the Joseph Stalin Celebrity Makeover. Despotism in three days, or your money back! It’s helpful that Luca’s such a hands-on manager. (I told you, I can’t stop with the puns.)

Well, Luca, it was nice knowing you before you went full-on evil. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll be here cheering for you to get a bullet through your brain before you bring even further misery to your country and your family.

Not going to lie- this page chilled me to the core for a whole day. Tesa’s eye in the second panel and Luca at the end. It just gave me the shivers, I could not focus on my studies all day ’cause I kept thinking of this page.

Riddle me this, Alex. This question is for you, only ;D I believe it’s the strip before the one where Luca tests the food, but I noticed Tesa’s shocked/panicked expression at the meat, as if she’s surprised it hasn’t been touched. It’s highly probable Phe’s death was poisoning? (as theorized by many of us), did Tesa know, or have anything to do with it? (Or it could have been answered, and I somehow missed it, lol.)

This comic started incredibly intriguing. Very well drawn, and with a promising story. Seeing how this is now sacrificed for some cheap drama gore moments makes me genuinely sad. Main characters get introduced just to kill them. While I still like the drawing style, the gore makes it boring and empty. A bit like all the movie remakes who can’t do without overblown action scenes (‘flight of the phoenix’, ‘A-team’, ‘Enterprise’…).

Maybe I’m just too old or I care too much for fictional characters. But I can’t get any fun out of this butchering. If this comics was worse, I could make puns and laugh about it, but here was serious potential.

It feels like a promise for an exceptional comic didn’t come true. Well, just not for me.

That’s fair! It would be unrealistic for me to expect everyone to have the same tastes in my writing as I do. However I think it would also be fair for you to keep in mind that we haven’t yet finished with the three introductory chapters, and that there are around 40 chapters of story that you aren’t able to judge yet. If you’re truly against reading the rest of it, then I thank you very much for staying around so far. But if not I’d suggest that you check back at some point in the future to see where things are going. From the standpoint of the author I don’t think you have enough information yet to make an accurate assessment of the plot.

I think you’re being rather unfair here. Tesa certainly wasn’t a main character, she was a secondary one at best. If you’re going to look at it from the perspective of the reader, then yes, it is dramatic, but its importance to the story is to illustrate the fact that Luca has been driven to near insanity, if not outright lunacy. Your dismissive and to be quite frank indecently condescending message is just rude and half thought through

Your opinion seems a little unwaranted, Pete. In defense of the author, I think you’ve spoken too soon- the plot is unfolding, I feel Phe’s death is an extremely important point in the development of Luca’s character, as was the same for Tesa’s. Being ‘too old’ has little to do with your personal tastes, perhaps you’re ‘too judgemental’ too soon, not ‘too old;’ the rest of us respect the bold and fearless bit of ‘slaughter.’ This is, after all, a graphic novel, not a child’s story, and it’s proving to be an exceptional one at that. I feel this comic still has great potential that grows with the addition of each page- and I’m sure most everyone here will agree with me. As Gleebits said- you seem very condescending. If you don’t like it, either stop reading or make your comments constructive.

Definitely. Something I only just realised was exactly how LITTLE of the story we’ve actually seen – with one or two pages being released a week, it’s easy to think that the story is longer than it actually is. :)

“My name is luca
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes i think you’ve seen me before
If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight
Just don’t ask me what it was
Just don’t ask me what it was
Just don’t ask me what it was…”

i think you just
*puts on sunglasses*
made yourself look stupid
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW tesa had it coming. every movie has a panic prone idiot who opens the doors to the zombie horde, or tries to negotiate with the psycho that lost his morality before his virginity. I feel sympathy for the devil, cause mick jagger asked me to. but he never said anything about idiots

Wow that scared me to pieces! But I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it~ Lucas expression in the last panel of the last page was too expressionless to mean anything good. Ohhh Luca you shouldn’t have done that! Phe wouldn’t have wanted it!

I think he’s saying that even though he doesn’t suspect either of them of actually assassinating Phe, he’s still going through to open hostilities with Caris. The killing of the ambassador was just to put the period on the end of that message.

well with that scary conversation tesa must have recieved a
*puts on sunglasses*
heat”setence”
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man. On reread, I don’t really understand why he bothered to lie on the previous page. He’s evil and all, but if his motivation is revenge and anger and stuff, what does he gain by momentarily appearing to be willing to negotiate? What was going through his mind when he entered the room that way?

I just don’t get how to fit this sequence into my understanding of the character, “blinded by torment and rage” sort of deal.